OCR Text |
Show . Merry-Go-Rouhd By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN WASHINGTON If the Roosevelt proposal for Increasing the size of the supreme court passes congress, here is the best inside estimate based upon the opinions of their associates as to which of the Justice will resign. Chief Justice Hughes will resign immediately. immedi-ately. He reaches the age of 79 on April 11, and he has alreedy put himself on record in his own book that it is highly doubtful whether a supreme court Justice should serve after that age. Justice Brandeis will also resign. Bran-deis Bran-deis is 80 yesrs old and has been in failing health for some time. More important, however, is Brandeis' conviction that he should not be a controversial issue. He would rather eliminate himself from the picture. Justice' Van Devanter will also retire. He will be 78 years old on April 17 and he has been rather fed up on the whole court controversy con-troversy for some time. He planned to resign during the last dsys of the Hoover administration, administra-tion, but determined to (tick it out after Roosevelt Roose-velt was elected. Van Devanter once was a member of the Republioan national committee, and sat in on Republican conferences affecting Wyoming, his home state, even after his appointment appoint-ment to the supreme court . Justice Sutherland also will probably retire. re-tire. He will be 75 on March 25, ia a pronounced hypochondriac, is always talking about himself and his medicine, and, like Van Devanter, planned to retire at the end of the Hoover ad-ministrstion. ad-ministrstion. He wss a member of the Republican Repub-lican national committee from Utah. McReynolds Stay Justice McReynolds probably will remain, although celebrating his 75th 'birthday last week. He remains grim and determined in all his opposition op-position to New Deal legislation. McReynolds has considered retiring, but those around him think he will remain. Justice Butler also Is almost certain to remain re-main unless all of the conservative justices decide de-cide upon a mutual withdrawal as a rebuff to the president Butler will be 71 on St Patrick's Pat-rick's dsy, is almost as staunchly opposed to New Deal legislation as McReynolds. and has a determination which is hard to shake. Justice Roberts an unknown quantity, but those who know him best think he will resign, make an issue of the president's action and keep himself free, if events breek right to run for the Republican nomination in 1940. He is the youngest member of the court, only 82 on Msy 2, is in excellent health, and has entertained presidential pres-idential ambitions. Justice Stone also a relatively young member mem-ber of the court he is 65 is expected to remain. re-main. He 1 in sympathy with the president' policies. Justice Cardozo Also in sympathy with the New Deal, is expected to remain, although he may have to retire because of ill health. He has been suffering from a bad heart for coma time. He is 07 year old. Tretsky Salt . Leon Trotxky, exiled Bolshevist leader, plans to bring a libel auit against a well-known communist com-munist newspaper in New York for calling ham an "assassin. The strategy is pot so much to collect damages, dam-ages, but to give a complete public airing to Trotzky's side of the recent Moscow treason trials. Trotsky wants to do this through . the medium of an American court From a strictly legal viewpoint the communist commu-nist paper involved might have a hard time defending de-fending its case, since it is questionable whether the court record in Moscow contained anything directly involving Trotxky in murder, and most of the witnesses, even if they had been available, avail-able, are now dead. |